Re: gEDA-user: Comments after successfully running gnetman . . . .

[sdb@cloud9.net (Stuart Brorson)]

> >As far as the change goes, my thought was to create a 6th button on
> >the attribute saying "enter value text" or something like that.  When
> >you clicked it, it would give you a multi-line text entry widget where
> >you could enter the attribute value.   This widget would pop up on top
> >of the attribute edit box.  You would type in the multi-line text, and
> >then you would click on "OK" in the multi-line text widget, and it
> >would place the text in the attribute's value & return focus back to
> >the attribute edit widget.
> 
> 	I wasn't planning on supporting multiline attributes (mainly 
> because the various edit/add dialog boxes start getting unwieldy).
> Please explain to me the benefit of multiline text attributes?  Under want
> circumstances are they really required?

There are single line attributes, and multi-line attributes.  Agreed,
most attributes are single line.  However, here are some example
multi-line attributes which it would be nice to attach to symbols:

*  SPICE models.  If you want to attach a multi-line SPICE model (as
they tend to be) directly to a symbol (instead of via a file=
attribute), it is currently impossible. 

*  SPICE directives.  It would be nice to have a spice-directive-*.sym
symbol which you could place on the schematic, and have it hold
several lines of SPICE which would get written into the netlist.
Bill's gnetman currently looks for text of the form "^.foo spice
stuff", and sticks the text into the netlist.  I am a little leery of
putting text into a netlist, as his prog currently does.

*  Other multi-line text.  Imagine in the future that somebody builds
an IBIS netlister which allows you to place a termination symbol on
the schematic with a multi-line IBIS model held in the term symbol.
Currently, you can't do this.  But it would be nice to enable
it. . . .

Also, think about placing hierarchical blocks on the schematic, and
then writing Verilog into them -- something like you do with Leonardo --
and then netlisting to create a Verilog file.  Allowing one to attach
multi-line text attributes to a symbol in gschem would allow this, and
it would be very cool!  Of course, the question is "how to enable this
in a simple & intuitive way?"  My thought was to just extend the
attribute editing widget to enable entry of multi-line attributes if
the user so desired.

Stuart